Best in Sales are Best in Basics

Everyone sells something. Whether it is convincing an investor to invest into your idea, you selling yourself to a recruiting company or trying to argue your point about how a boys weekend trip will actually benefit also your wife. All sales.

In that sense - sales is more or less just communication with an end goal. It is a 2-way process regardless of the product or industry. It is quite simple. It is not rocket science. But why is it then often portraid as challenging. pressured, hard or even a bit frightening? Why still a small portion of sales people collect most of the fruits out there. Year after year and quarter after quarter.

One part of the success recipe is being humble enough to understand that in sales (and of course in other things in life) the best performers are best in basics. Because even if sales is simple, competition can make it hard. Especially when the external factors get rough, the skilled sales people stand out. I have been one of those myself who ring the bell when a huge deal comes through knowing in the back of my head that it had nothing to do with me. And I have been one of those who ignored numbers and pipeline and arrogantly stated that I know my sales game. And I have learned that the moment you think you ace your game and you think you got it you start losing your grip. Because you start to ignore the basics.

That said this will be one my main aspects in the blog posts about sales. I will exemplify and bring the topic to life with learnings as we go.

What do you think? Does it resonate with you? Have you lost the humbleness ever and seen the impact? What examples you have about valuing the basics?